Here is why our NHS and Local Government is utterly shafted

I saw this first hand the other day. I went to the tip to get rid of the Christmas wrapping paper and boxes etc as the recycling is not collected for another week. When there another fella in a van pulled up he had the same as me, wrapping paper and empty you boxes etc. because he didn't have a slip being a van they would not let him drop it off. Now I can understand this if it was full of rubble, garden rubbish etc, but it was obvious that he was just trying to get rid of the Christmas rubbish, but some jobs worth couldn't see the bigger picture and cut him a bit of slack. So he has either taken it back home and will wait for the recycling to collect or dumping bin a layby on the way home.

Rusty

 

We've had to get a licence from the council to use the tip, as the van is sign written.

 

When we moved here, we needed to get a permission slip from the council area we were moving from so that we could take "household" rubbish to the tip; no slip, no-can-do! Fair enough, in my opinion. Why should I have to queue behind others in vans who can't be bothered to live by the rules? If they should then go off and dump it somewhere else, then that is a double-whammy of selfishness on their part and they get no sympathy from me.

 

I disagree. Due to Christmas we haven't had recycling collection for what will be nearly a month. The fella in question was probably trying to clean up a bit of mess from Christmas. I'm lucky I have a garage to put it in, maybe this guy never, which could mean that his only place to store is outside. This would probably mean with the weather here it would be all over the place by now. I think he had about 3 bags and a few boxes. The bags were actually the big Christmas gift bags. It's not as though he had a van load of stuff. I think that with the collections being a month in between and most people know that during the festive period you get more rubbish than usual then they could have let it slide. If any other time of the year I would agree with you. I am also not saying that he would have dumped it in a lay by, but driving around Birmingham the amount of stuff that is being dumped willy nilly is definitely increasing, which means that funds need to be found to sort out. If the queue for the tip wasn't 45 minutes long I would have thrown it in the bag of my car and gone back round.

Rusty

 

I do understand that, it is the same for us. Nevertheless, by that same token, we all get a leaflet through the letterbox stating what the collection days/times will be (in advance). I think it is generally accepted that most households end up with more paper/boxes recycling at that time of year. Wouldn't *that* have been his opportunity to apply for a slip? Yes, it does take time and thought in forward planning, but possibly not quite as much time and effort as he put into trying to take it to the recycling and being rejected! Mind you, if he had a family car and loaded that up with the paper/boxes, he would have had no problems.

 

So this thread seems to be about inefficient garbage service and idiot pharmacy/doctors. We have plenty of those here too. On the pharmacy issues, my husband is taking a few repeat prescriptions and they are on automatic refill. The pharmacy sends him a text when the prescription is ready and we go pick it up. No complaints. They have even called a doctor on his behalf to get a prescription refilled. We do not have prescription insurance, so the lady that waits on him searches the internet for discounts and we never pay full price. He is on Medicare and it costs more money for prescription coverage, when he was 65, he didn't take medicines so we didn't take the extra coverage. The price goes up as one gets older, especially if you didn't take the prescription coverage to start with. We do better with the discounts and the gooberment can stuff their prescription plan.

Our gooberment mandated UN-Affordable Health Care Act is a failure. A plan for me would cost upwards of $800 with a TEN THOUSAND deductible which I would NEVER reach, so I pay their stupid fine each year and hate the whole debacle with a vengeance. I am healthy, take no medications, seldom see a doctor, and the idea of squandering $9600 a year for nothing, ain't gonna happen. Plus if I did use it, I would have to shell out an additional TEN THOUSAND smackaroos for the privilege of getting screwed over. Not happening.

Moving on to garbage...... in the cities garbage pick up is usually included on the water/sewage bill. Put the trash out on the designated days, the truck comes by, trash is dumped and take the can back to the back yard. Easy. In the rural areas, you can burn your garbage except when there is a burn ban in the dry heat of the summer. Or you can opt for trash service for about $20 to $30 a month. A truck comes by once a week and picks up the trash. The garbage companies are mostly small independent privately owned businesses. We don't generate much trash, so we take a bag over to our daughter's and contribute to their can.

 

I have all but given up with the youngsters that live next to us because they seem to be in a different world than us.Everyone in the village had a bright pink slip attached to the dustbin handle informing us all that the black dustbin would be picked up Xmas eve instead of the usual Monday which was Boxing Day.Saturday came and we all put out our dustbins which were duly emptied apart from my neighbours that is.When we saw them later on and asked why they didn't put their dustbin out the husband said he had forgotten,ooops

On New Years Eve there was a knock at the front door.It was my neighbour asking Mr Kandy if he could put some of their dustbin bags into our bin as theirs was full,and he was telling us that because the little one was teething then he was getting through more disposable nappies We said yes but not to fill our bin too full as we need to put our own bags in it.

Anyway,two days ago I noticed that there was two extra dustbin bags half full in our bin.Yesterday I went to put our own kitchen waste bag in the dustbin and noticed that there is only space for one more bag and guess what,the black bin won't get emptied until next Monday We can't even move the dustbin because of the weight of all these poohy nappies

I said to Mr Kandy that we might have to empty some of the bags out of the dustbin and take them up to the tip as our neighbour will probably be back at work tomorrow and after all we have nothing better to do with our lives

Re the Dr's I keep telling the Dispensary attached to our surgery that I am not overdue for my review since last May 2016 as it states on my script.I turn up for all my reviews because if I don't I know they will want to know why.Why they can't just get it off is beyond me. If Mr Kandy is overdue for his review they either pin a note to his script or else they send him a polite letter reminding him it is due.Me I just get it printed at the bottom of my script when I don't need it

 

Interesting that your council brings the day forward; certainly would make it easier to mistake and miss the collection.
Ours picks up at the earliest opportunity *after* the usual collection day. So, this year, instead of our bins being emptied on Friday 30th, they were emptied on Saturday 31st. What actually happened was, most of the neighbourhood put their bins out, as usual, on the Friday! Thank goodness they left them out for the Saturday collection too If they had attempted to bring them back in on the Friday evening, the weight of it would have been a warning sign that there were not empty (thus, a memory jog to leave them out too). So, a win-win for them and the council

 

My usual bin collection was Friday but it was moved to Monday.
As you say the ones that cant read still put their bins out on Friday and just left them there till today, simple.
Moving the day forward rather than back is asking for trouble.

As to my garden bin which I pay 40 quid a year extra for, well they dont empty that one at all for about a month.

 

Weekly collections to fortnightly. Free use of the recycling centres to pay as you drop, or paid up licence. Cuts in the emergency services.

Yet council tax doesn't seem to be going down.

 

No, it is going up.
We've been warned to expect a 2% increase each year for the next couple of years. The reason? To pay for the ever increasing demands on "social care" to pick up the shortfall due to Government cuts.

 

@"M" the reason why our council changed the day was because Christmas this year fell on a Sunday so Monday was a BH.Usually there isn't a problem because it usually stays the same when it is Christmas or I think they sometimes come a day later.Our neighbours would have seen all the other bins out on the paths or grass verges,but I forgot they never pull their window blinds up as it is too much trouble,or they are sitting in the lounge watching telly all day with the kids.It seems that having a Degree qualification doesn't stand for much these days

Any spare piece of land outside our village is full of dumped stuff because people either forget to put their bins out for the fortnightly collections or they can't be bothered to drive all the way to the local tip or if they do it is closed a couple of days a week because the tip operatives want a couple of days off like everyone else does.

Evidently someone from a town eleven miles away from our village paid someone to dispose of his spare dustbin bags (a so called friend) only what he didn't know was that this so called friend distributed it all over the road and grass verges outside our village,possible after dark and a lady dog walker found addressed envelopes amongst the rubbish and she posted photos of it all over Facebook so the poor chap had to be texted and told what had happened and it was going to be reported pronto.The next day all the said rubbish was quickly tidied away and the offending posts and photos were taken down by the admin on Facebook

 

Ah, now that depends on what he got a degree in: Jeremy Kyle?